scratch your future into my back
by aimlessly
Summary: "You're supposed to be dead." "Perceptive one, you are." AustinAlly.


**notes:** so i kind of wrote a fic with ally as a ghost because why the hell not; hopefully you guys aren't sick of me yet. fun fact: this is saved in my documents as "fucking ghost fic fuck me in the ass fuck."

* * *

scratch your future into my back

if you let me be your sunlight/ i promise that i will penetrate your darkness/ until you speak in angel wings — rudy fransisco, love poem

* * *

Car crashes are, in Austin's opinion, the most cliché way to die.

He knows Ally would have preferred to go out quietly, in the privacy of her own home, surrounded by walls that had known her since she was a child. She would have wanted to die with quiet dignity and grace, a peaceful last breath.

(It's not like they ever really discussed it, but Austin thinks he knew - knows - Ally well enough to be sure she would much rather have had that than what she got — gasping her life away on blood-soaked asphalt, mangled body trapped inside Austin's overturned mustang.

She deserved so much better, but really, he mostly just wishes she didn't have to die at all.)

* * *

It starts like this —

They're heading back from the beach, the sky is dark and the air is warm and restless. The roads are empty and he's speeding, but only a little, and it's okay because the road is truly deserted, and the top is down and Ally is laughing breathlessly, dark hair flying in the wind. Austin takes a moment, just one moment look at her and revel in her joy — god, she's beautiful, he thinks. She is so beautiful, and he is so, so lucky to have her.

That's when it happens.

It takes only a split second; one second they are laughing, sand on the leather seats and and salt on their skin and the next a car is barreling out of nowhere towards them. Austin turns, suddenly, and there is a horrible, horrible sound of metal against metal as the car rips out the metal guardrails on the side of the road, flipping over onetwothree times, windshield blown in, sending shards of glass into gaping eyes, before coming to rest upside down on the road.

And again it is quiet.

Austin can't breathe. It feels like something giant has wrapped around his chest, squeezing tighter and tighter, but all he can think is Ally, Ally, Ally.

Inhale. Scream. Breathe. Scream. Red behind his eyelids.

She is completely silent, staring blankly ahead of her, still trapped upside down by her seatbelt. And then she blinks and he breathes a sigh of relief, because she's alive, and he is alive, and everything will be okay. As long as Ally is around, everything is okay.

"Austin," she says suddenly, voice like broken glass.

"Ally," he murmurs softly, wincing in pain as he reaches out to stroke her cheek comfortingly. "It's okay, you're okay, we're okay. Someone will be here soon, and they'll get us out and stitch us up and -"

"_Austin._"

And then he sees it; he has been so preoccupied with her face and her wild eyes that he hasn't bothered to check anywhere else. Just above where the belt rests across her lap, her abdomen is stained crimson. It's everywhere, too, seeping into her cotton shirt and jeans.

"Ally," it comes out as a choked sob this time. "No, no, no. You're going to be fine. Everything is going to be fine. Just hang in there; help is on the way."

"I love you."

And he loses it.

"No," he protests, voice demanding in a tone he never uses with her. "No goodbyes; I refuse to let you die here. So there's no point in saying goodbye, because you aren't going to die."

Ally tries to smile and promptly coughs up a mouthful of blood, eyes fluttering shut in pain. And then Austin can hear them; sirens wailing in the distsnce. Hope rises in his chest.

"Hear that, Als? They're coming for us. Just a little bit longer now." She says nothing, and when he looks over, wincing at the sharp pain in his neck, she is crying. Her tears make clean streaks in the blood and dirt on her face. Austin's heart clenches. "Hey," he coos, trying again. "Don't cry, babe. Why are you crying?"

"I don't want to die." It comes out as a throaty whisper; Ally slowly licks the blood from her lips, eyes glistening with more unshed tears.

"You're not going to die. Hear those sirens getting closer? They'll be here in just a minute, maybe even sooner, and they're going to get us out of here. Okay, Als?"

But her breaths are getting shorter, faster, bloody little fists clenched by her sides. Austin pleads with her to stay, just a few more moments now, please, please, please.

By the time the sirens reach them, all blinding lights and screeching brakes, Ally is limp and Austin is screaming.

* * *

Ally's funeral goes something like this —

A couple hundred people show up and stand quiet, huddled together in the wet grass as a robed man drones on and on. There are soft sobs rising up from the crowd, from people who didn't know her, who didn't see the way her eyes lit up when she was excited or how she would throw her head back and laugh at his terrible jokes.

He is in a wheelchair, because the crash broke both his legs and all of Ally.

(In the hospital, he told the doctor he would gladly let them cut both of his legs off and even take his arms, too, if he meant it would make Ally be, well. Not dead.

Unfortunately, the doctor had said, sad smile on his face, it doesn't work like that.

If Austin could've stood up, he would have punched him square in the face.)

By the end, Austin kind of hates them and he hates Ally most of all — he hates her for not telling him to slow down and pay attention, he hates her for not holding on until the ambulance came, but mostly he just hates her for being dead.

Because he's seventeen and even now nobody can break his heart like she does.

* * *

There is a girl in Austin's backyard.

She's swinging on the old, crumbling swingset he and Ally used to swing on. She is facing away from him, black hoodie covering her hair. The sun is setting, and her dark, lithe form is stark against the orange sky.

Austin is angry. He is angry because that swingset is one of the few remaining tangible things he has left that remind him of Ally, and he doesn't know why this girl thinks that trespassing on his property for a little thrill is okay. Out of his wheelchair, now, he limps quickly over to the sliding glass doors, shoving them open.

"Excuse me. What the hell are you doing back here? You can't just walk onto someone's property like this and -"

The girl turns around, and he stops dead in his tracks.

Her skin is covered in swirling tendrils of ink, brilliantly colored flowers blossoming against the backdrop of her milky skin.

Her eyes are black as coals, wide and vacant like two clouded pools.

She is almost glittering in the light, and at first Austin thinks her skin is made of diamonds but upon closer inspection realizes there are broken shards of glass embedded there from when the windshield exploded and the sky wept glass. His stomach lurches.

Words are failing him, lump rising in his throat as he reaches out to touch her arm.

"You're supposed to be dead."

"Perceptive one, you are."

Austin promptly faints.

* * *

He wakes up lying atop his sheets, her cool hands on his face.

"What are you?"

"A monster. An angel. I don't know." She promptly bursts into tears and, well. Dead Ally is even more sensitive than Not Dead Ally was.

He just holds her, body too thin and ice cold to the touch, because it's easier than telling her the truth — he has never seen anything more beautiful, or more terrifying.

It's not the Ally he knows, but it's enough for him

* * *

"I can see things even you don't." He wants to ask what she means by that, doesn't.

They are walking hand in hand down the street one afternoon, heavy rain pouring down and drenching the earth. The tears of the universe, Austin thinks, sky overcast and clouds kraken-cruel.

"Someone died here," she says, so quietly he almost doesn't hear it. "A boy. Ten years old. Right there," she whispers, gesturing across the road, where the trees are thick and tall. "Hit by a drunk driver while riding his bike." When she turns to look at him, he thinks he can see sadness in her blank eyes.

* * *

"So, what else can you do?" he asks jokingly, tracing the inky patterns on arch of her back with the tip of his finger. "Read minds? See through walls? Fly?"

Ally giggles, the sound empty and echoing. "No, nothing like that. I'm dead, not a superhero."

"Don't say that," he whispers, closing his eyes.

"What, that I'm dead?"

"Yeah, that."

"I am, though."

"I know that. I just... Don't like thinking about it. Like now, it almost feels like normal," he says, eyes drifting over her marred skin, and plucks a silky petal from one of flowers blossoming on the back of her hand. "Almost."

She laughs darkly and then she's gone, but the feeling of her presence lingers and he can see the little dips where the knobs of her spine dug into the mattress.

He goes out to the market and she's there, hiding behind shelves and darting away when he comes near, giggling like a child. He goes to Sonic Boom to help her dad out and there she is, sitting at the piano bench or perched at the top of the stairs. Nobody else can see her and he has long since stopped trying to get anyone to.

She follows him, always. She will follow him forever.

* * *

"I see her all the time," he tells his therapist, barely able to contain his grin. "It's fucking crazy, I know, but she's there. I swear, she's actually there."

A worried glance, a pregnant pause, and then - "Maybe I should refer you to a psychiatrist."

Austin will happily swallow every pretty little pill the doctors ask of him if it means Ally will keep showing up when he least expects her.

* * *

"I think," Ally whispers breathily one night while he's inside of her, their intertwined bodies tangled up in his sheets. "I think I'm not gonna be hear much longer."

"Don't say that," Austin hisses, sucking a bruise onto her inked neck. "Why would you say that?"

"Just a feeling," she sighs, fingernails digging into his back like claws. Austin hisses in pain but just kisses her harder, because their time is running out and they both know it.

He wakes up the next morning alone in his cold bed, but when he checks his back in the mirror he can still see the long, angry marks on his back where her nails raked against his skin as she moaned his name.

By the time he sees his therapist later that afternoon, the scratches have miraculously healed.

* * *

Things get angrier. They spend less time reminiscing and more time fucking, and it gets rougher and rougher. The flowers growing around her turn dark; midnight blue and black and deep purple. Sometimes she claws so hard at his back that she draws blood. She never apologizes. He doesn't want her to.

They are equals here; she is not fragile and delicate like the flowers littering her body like bruises.

"I can't keep doing this," she says, coal eyes burning as she stares at him.

"Then don't," Austin hisses, "You were never her, anyway."

He slams the door shut. When he comes back in later that night, feeling apologetic, she is gone, but her can hear her sobbing all night long from a world just beyond his grasp.

She doesn't come back after that.

He misses her. She wasn't Ally, not his Ally, not as he knew her, but he misses her. He cries every night, begs to the empty air, please please please come back, I'm sorry. He stops going out all together, because, well, what if she comes back?

He is not surprised when paramedics show up to take him away, strapping him to a stretcher. His therapist was going to call them sooner or later.

The room is white, a blank canvas and the air is still. He is alone. His parents come to visit and his mother sobs, says, "It's alright, baby. It's okay, you're going to be fine. Everything will be fine," as she smooths his hair.

_There's__ nothing wrong with me_, he wants to say, but he doesn't because they won't listen anyway.

But he smiles and nods when the doctors and psychiatrists ask him if he's stopped seeing her. "Yes, I have," he says confidently and tries not to chuckle when he sees her peeking out from behind the slightly ajar door. The doctors all smile and take enthusiastic notes on their clipboards.

She seems to have forgiven him, mostly, but she doesn't visit much anymore.

It's been three weeks, six days, fifteen hours and fifty four minutes since he last saw her when he smells it. It's subtle at first, but gets closer and closer until it's completely wrapped around him, invading his senses. He closes his eyes and holds this moment close.

Lilacs. Ally's favorite.

* * *

**so i genuinely wasn't expecting that to turn out so dark. whoops. i'm pretty disappointed with how this came out tbh but i told myself i would finish it and i did. things to look out for: a multi-chapter fic or super long oneshot (like 20k+) with much more humor and romance and feeeeeels and all that good shit**.


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